Hey there, 

If you’ve opened ChatGPT or Claude recently, you may have noticed options to connect apps like Google Drive, Notion, or your calendar. Those connections let your AI read your real information and even take actions for you, instead of relying only on whatever you paste into the chat. Many of these connections run on a technology you’ve probably seen floating around: MCP, although not every app integration uses it. MCP isn’t brand new, but the number of apps you can connect has grown a lot this year. So this week, we’ll explore what MCP is, what it lets your AI do, and how to connect your first app.

What MCP is and where it came from

MCP stands for Model Context Protocol, and it’s an open-source standard for connecting AI apps to outside tools, files, and services. The official site compares it to a USB-C port. Just like USB-C gives your devices one standard way to plug into each other, MCP gives AI apps one standard way to connect to other software. Before MCP, every new app or data source needed its own custom connection, which made it hard to hook AI up to lots of tools at once. So in other words, instead of an app building one connection for ChatGPT, another for Claude, and another for every other AI tool, it can build one MCP connection that works across all of them.

Anthropic, the company behind Claude, released MCP in November 2024, but it isn’t owned by Anthropic anymore. In December 2025, Anthropic donated MCP to a new group under the Linux Foundation that it co-founded with Block and OpenAI, with support from Google, Microsoft, and others. By then, MCP had already been adopted by ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and other popular AI products.

What MCP lets your AI do

Once an app is connected, your AI can work with your actual information instead of guessing or asking you to copy and paste. The official MCP site gives examples like an AI assistant that can check your Google Calendar and Notion, or one that can create 3D designs in Blender and send them to a 3D printer. In Claude, the connectors directory now has more than 200 options, including everyday apps like AllTrails, Instacart, Audible, Tripadvisor, and TurboTax. In ChatGPT, connected apps can find a file, summarize a document, or look up a message in services like Google Drive and Slack, and some can take actions like creating or updating information.

How to connect your first app

The easiest app to start with is Google Calendar, since almost everyone has one and the results are easy to check. In Claude, connectors are available to all users on the web, desktop app, and mobile. Just open the Connectors Directory, pick an app, and sign in to your account. In ChatGPT, go to Settings, then Plugins, select the app you want, install it, and sign in (OpenAI’s guide walks through each step). Once it’s connected, you can mention the app with @ in any chat so ChatGPT knows to use it. Keep in mind that which apps you can connect depends on your plan and region, so you may not see every app mentioned here.

After you’re connected, try a couple of prompts like these:

• “Look at my calendar this week and find two open hours for a workout.”

• “Summarize my upcoming meetings and flag any that overlap.”

You also stay in control of what your AI can do. ChatGPT lets you control when it asks for permission. For example, you can require approval before it accesses your information, or allow it to read information while still asking before it makes changes. When choosing what to connect, stick with the built-in apps from companies you trust, and review the permissions they request. Both Claude and ChatGPT also let you add custom connectors from around the web, but both companies warn against connecting unverified servers unless you fully trust the service behind them.

My Thoughts

I think connecting your apps is one of the most useful upgrades most people haven’t tried yet. We spend a lot of time in this newsletter talking about new models, but even the smartest model can’t help with your schedule if it can’t see your calendar. Connecting just one app changes the kind of help you can ask for, because your AI is finally working with your real information. If you try one connection this week, start with your calendar and see what it can do.